The Daughter She Never Chose Chapter 03

The Daughter She Never Chose Chapter 03

Sharp pain spread over my cheek and throbbed inside my head, a bitter strange taste filling my mouth.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, those words echoed.

I must have been seven, maybe eight.

That Christmas, Mom bought Julian piles of new toys.

All I got was a keychain, the freebie that came with one of his toy cars.

When relatives stopped by and saw the discrepancy, they tried to tell my parents, gently and carefully, that it wasn’t right.

Mom waved it off. “Those are Julian’s reward for his grades.”

“Elena didn’t do as well, so she didn’t get anything.”

We were one point apart.

The relatives didn’t know that. They nodded along. “Oh, well, that makes sense. Julian doing that well at his age? That boy’s going places.”

“Well, of course. Boys always go further.”

Mom ate it up, nodding like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Then she sighed.

“Such a shame I got one of each… Can you imagine if I’d had two boys instead?”

I was too young to understand what favoritism was. All I knew was that good grades were how you earned love.

So I studied harder. I studied until I was first in my class, until Julian wasn’t even close.

I brought my report card home, perfect scores across the board, and held it out to Mom.

“Am I better than Julian now?”

She didn’t smile.

She delivered a sharp slap to my cheek.

“You get one good report card and think you’re special?”

“You know Julian’s upset about his grades, and you come in here rubbing it in his face!”

“What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?”

The joy drained out of me, leaving something cold and confused in its place.

I didn’t understand. Julian had done the same thing.

He’d beaten me by a point or two, and they treated him like a hero. Toys, praise, everything.

Why was it different when it was me?

After that, I stopped telling anyone my grades.

I stayed first in my class every year. I got a full ride to college. I never said a word about any of it.

That was years ago. I’d buried it so deep I thought I’d forgotten.

Mom hadn’t.

She was still going.

“If Julian hadn’t saved your life, you wouldn’t even be here!”

“He stood in floodwater for hours to keep you alive! He was sick with a fever for weeks after that!”

“His health was never the same. That’s why he struggled in school. That’s why he can’t hold down a job. Because of you!”

“You took everything—everything he gave up for you—and you forgot all of it. And now you have the nerve to sit here and attack him!”

“You’re no daughter of mine!”

Every pair of eyes at the table shifted to me.

The fight went out of me.

“I didn’t forget…”

I had no real memory of what she was talking about.

Everything I knew about it came from what they’d told me.

I was ten. A flood hit in the middle of the night, and water rushed into the house.

Mom and Dad were both away on business. I was burning up with a fever.

The only thing I remember was Julian pounding on my door.

The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital.

They told me Julian broke down the door, carried me on his back to higher ground, and waited there until help came.

They told me I owed Julian my life, and I should never forget that.

I carried that debt with me everywhere. I let him have whatever he wanted. I never fought back, never tried to show him up.

In all those years, this was the first time I’d ever pushed back.

All I wanted was for them to see me. To say I mattered too.

Just once.